The corollary to “Don’t shop when you’re hungry” should be “Don’t read cooking magazines before breakfast.” I broke out the latest issue of Gourmet on the bus one morning last week and found, buried in a story about the author’s trip to somewhere, a passing line about a tasty chocolate-banana bread pudding with caramel sauce. You know me, dear reader — my mind latched onto that sentence like Sanjaya to a curling iron and wouldn’t let go, despite the ungodly hour.

So when I found myself with the better part of a LARGE brioche loaf going to waste, I improvised something for Saturday’s breakfast using my basic bread pudding recipe. The bananas we had weren’t quite ripe enough, so I roughed them up a little with the bananas foster treatment to coax some extra flavor from them.

No caramel sauce because this WAS breakfast, after all, but it was pretty tasty even without. The dish was utterly unphotogenic, so you get no picture, but you’ll survive. You’re strong like that, baby.

I’m really glad we got this bread pudding in the rotation when we did because, as I learned this weekend, The Official MI Husband has decided to give up the proscribed stuff for Passover. Which means I’m giving up the proscribed stuff for Passover. (Being neither Catholic nor Jewish, the only thing I ever had to avoid was dancing, so I’m rather naively looking forward it.)

I hope you’ll join me here for the next eight days of The Pesach Challenge, where you will no doubt witness a shameless combination of moaning and lusting over foodstuffs. Probably not much different than a normal day, now that I think about it.

recipe after the jump

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t think the chocolate added much to this. But I’m not a chocolate freak by any stretch of the imagination, so I’ll leave the decision to include it to you.

3/4 loaf brioche
5 eggs
1 large can fat free evaporated milk
whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons pure cane syrup (I use Steen’s)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 bananas
1 tablespoon rum
1 tablespoon sugar, divided
cocoa powder
semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter bottom and sides of small baking dish.

Tear bread into large pieces and place in a single layer on large baking sheet. Toast in oven for about 10 minutes, or until bread begins to dry out. Do not brown.

In a large bowl, whisk together, eggs, evaporated milk, vanilla and almond extracts, and cane syrup. Add bread, pressing down so it absorbs the egg mixture evenly. Let soak for a few minutes (or, if you’re using croissants, for one hour), adding milk as needed.

While bread is soaking, peel bananas and slice into thin rounds. Heat butter in skillet and add brown sugar, stirring until sugar has melted. Add bananas and sauté for a minute, then add rum and sauté for another minute.

To assemble, spoon a layer of bread into bottom of baking dish. Sprinkle lightly with cocoa powder and layer with half of bananas. Repeat with bread, cocoa, and bananas, and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Top with remaining bread and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes, or until bread layer is evenly browned and custard is no longer runny.